


Winter tale

by justAleks



Category: Bandom, Megadeth
Genre: Christmas fic, Don’t copy to another site, Gen, bcuz why not
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-06
Updated: 2019-06-06
Packaged: 2020-04-11 22:22:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19118869
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justAleks/pseuds/justAleks
Summary: It's Christmas time, and David feels a bit homesick. Sulking Dave prompts him to try and bring some Christmas spirit into their lives.





	Winter tale

        Winter should be white and pure, so cold you feel like it’s stabbing you with a million needles. Winter should be adorned with a mug of hot chocolate or any hot beverage you can find around the home. Winter should be spent, alternating between freezing off your limbs in the snow, making snowmen, battling against other kids, and huddling in front of a fireplace, trying to bring back some feeling into your fingers and toes, and drying off snow soaked clothes.

Instead, David tries not to feel too homesick, sitting in a dingy room (thanking God that he HAS room to start off) and looking at his new friend who's huddled on a couch David, personally, would not touch with a ten-foot pole.

Dave's looking through the dirty window with empty eyes, lost in his own thoughts to the point he seems to forget David's existence. Junior isn’t sure if Dave’s on something or not. He didn’t see him taking anything, but the bassist isn’t his babysitter to constantly monitor what the redhead is doing, either way, Junior is fine with the silence for now.

The silence, which wraps around them like a blanket, is full of melancholy. Dave's eyes look like they belong to an ancient deity, who has seen everything the world has to offer but ended up empty-handed. In moments like this David can really see _Dave_ , not the wildfire, but a real person.

His fingers are twitching, a barely there movement, like he's playing the guitar. David's sure the redhead will come back to the present with some new riffs. Most of them only there to let Dave pour out his heart without being called a wimp. He's curling into himself a bit, like he's trying to protect his soft belly. David has no idea how to make Dave understand that he's not going to stab him, that Dave can be vulnerable if he wants to be. David doesn't care and won't judge. God knows he's let his guard down around Dave plenty of times.

David looks out the window closest to him, maybe to see what captured Dave’s attention in the first place. Grey, sad city greets him, soaking in something that doesn’t even resemble snow. Maybe equally grey rain at best.

He closes his eyes for a second, a memory of warm room with a crackling fire, of his mom’s quiet humming while cooking and his dad’s booming laughter at seeing his sons soaked from a full-on snowball battle blooming in his head. Briefly, he wonders how Dave’s Christmas looked in the past. David recalls hearing that Jehovah’s witnesses doesn’t celebrate this holiday. If that’s true, the bassist feels sad for Dave, not that he will ever tell it to the redhead. David wants to have his teeth intact, thank you very much. His eyes once again travel towards the guitarist on the couch.

Dave didn’t move an inch, and if not for his shoulders moving with every breath, David could easily suspect his friend died, when he was lost in memories.

The bassist looks around the dirty room, beer bottles strewn across the floor, their guitars propped on the wall, there’s a fleeting thought to move them more horizontally so they won’t fall down, but David doesn’t move an inch. Few cut-off strings, like confetti are scattered between the bottles. Nothing here even remotely hints at a supposedly jolly time of the year, except for a sad excuse of a tiny Christmas tree, that David found laying around trash and, without thinking, brought with him.

The Minnesota boy finally decides to turn on their radio and some catchy Christmas tune fills the silence. Dave blinks, the noise catches his attention and looks at Junior. For a second the redhead looks like a lost boy, big brown eyes, peering from under red, thick bangs on a face that shouldn't look as innocent as it does right now. A kid or a cocker spaniel, David's not sure which one he resembles more.

The second of innocence kickstarts David's instincts to make sure people dear to him are happy. He smiles at Dave, whose top lip curls up a bit on reflex and points at the crackling radio.

“It's Christmas time” he observes ever so brightly and wants to kick himself for being so lame, Dave seems to share the sentiment as the half sneer turns into a full one.

“And?” The sneer is in full force now, accompanied by flaring nostrils and a bit of disdain in his eyes. Some people would already be rethinking their desire to talk.

David cocks his head and lifts an eyebrow. ‘Our first? As a band?’ The Mustaine snarl stays in place.

‘As friends?’ David adds a bit softer. Surprisingly, this whisper catches Dave off guard. The snarl loses its power, and confusion creeps again onto ginger’s face.

Dave draws his brows together like the concept doesn’t make full sense to him.

‘What are you plotting Ellefson?’ David rolls his eyes.

‘To spend some quality time with you, you moron. Bake some cookies? Play some Christmas songs? I’d even propose a walk but the weather sucks’ David realizes that the direct approach is the way to go. Then an idea strikes him. A bit before Christmas he visited his family, hugs were exchanged, tears shed and, most importantly, his mom, after hearing he won’t be spending Christmas with them, send him back with a box of ornaments to bring a bit of _home_ with him. He stuffed the box in the furthest corner of their wardrobe and now is the best time to root it out.

‘Wait a second’ he smiles at Dave who looks at him confused. David doesn’t wait for any comment and dives into the depths of their rickety wardrobe. He emerges with a triumphant whoop.

‘There’ he deposits the box on Dave’s lap, narrowly avoiding it being flung out of his hands by the surprised redhead.

‘Choose whatever you like’ David encourages his friend to involve himself a bit and goes to fetch the tree, so they can truly start decorating it. A wide smile stretches his face, when he hears soft clinking of glass as Dave starts poking around the box contents.

He tries to make it as natural as possible, humming along to whatever song is playing and rooting through the box, letting Dave digest the new turn of their day in peace. He fishes out tangled, shiny tinsel and starts working on it. In the corner of his eye, David sees Dave freezing with eyes glued to a small bauble he found. A snarl again creeping on his face, the longer Dave’s staring down at the small glass ball the more Junior wonders how the ornament managed to offend Dave. David covers amused snort by cough, focusing on the pesky tinsel which is tangled beyond any belief.

It takes him almost 5 minutes to straighten it during which Dave keeps staring down the ornament in his hand. At first, Junior considers taking offence as Dave clearly has some personal problem with the colourful bauble. One he painted himself at a tender age of 5, if the rather mismatched blobs of colours are any indication. However, the longer the vocalist keeps twisting his mouth at the ball the more amused David becomes. Instead of decorating here he is, witnessing and intense deadlock between Mustaine and small bauble, if the poor thing had any semblance of consciousness it’d already be cowering under the murderous gaze, whimpering softly and wishing for mercy.

‘What is your problem?’ David can’t stop the question that tumbles from his mouth, accompanied by an amused snort, as another minute passes and he finally manages to wrap the tree with mostly straight but ungodly ruffled tinsel.

A few seconds pass before Dave directs his eyes at his friend. A holy fire of pure, unfiltered indignation mixed with a hint of well-masked confusion, that David picks up on only because, at some point, he became oddly familiar with all the small details of Dave’s expressions, is blazing in the brown eyes.

‘Why the fuck there is a deranged panda on this thing?’ he asks, voice matching the scathing look. David furrows his brows.

‘Panda? What panda? Are you tripping on something?’ He pads to the redhead, confused. He certainly doesn’t remember ever painting or even possessing a bauble with a panda on it. Dave sticks out his bottom lip in what is definitely-not-a-pout and presents David the reason for his indignation.

David doubles over with roaring laughter, barely managing to catch himself on the couch as he realizes what the painting actually is. Dave’s nostrils flare, but his lips twitch on their own accord as the laughter is of the contagious kind. Infamous Mustaine snarl becomes even more crooked.

‘Jesus Christ, Dave, have you ever seen panda?’ David straightens himself still chuckling, eyes glassy with tears that miraculously didn’t overflow. Dave puffs up, irritated at being questioned.

‘Of course, I did, and one is clearly staring at me with its beady, squinty eyes’ he waves the glass ball in front of David’s face.

The Minnesota boy smiles and gently extracts the ornament from redhead’s hands to avoid it being shattered.

‘That is not a panda, it’s a cat. Black and white, and chubby cat.’ This time it’s David who sticks the ball under his friend’s nose. Dave squints at it, ready to defend his stance. David stops him mid inhale.

‘I pained it when I was small, c’ mon, it’s not that bad’ David chuckles some more turning and putting the ball at the very centre of their tree. Dave looks at it offended.

‘It never even stood next to a cat’ he says stubbornly but David shrugs him off. As long as Dave won’t try to launch the poor panda-cat through the window he is okay with some snide comments. Dave is a grumpy menace, and there is no other way around it but to deal with him.

‘Stop being a big baby and finally help me with decorating’ he chides, looking at Dave with big puppy eyes. Dave stares him down for a bit, but at the end picks up a happy, pudgy angel to hang on the tree, grumbling softly under his breath. David beams at him which prompts Dave to turn a bit red and hide behind his bangs, apparently not sure how to deal with weird Christmas-fuelled joy that Junior starts to emit, like an exceptionally happy heater. 

The small smile that dances at his lips does not go unnoticed by David, who feels content and warm inside. Yes, he is going to make sure Dave won’t forget this Christmas.

‘Also, there might be few beer bottles stashed in the fridge’ he hums and bites back another bout of laughter as Dave abandons the box he was bending over and beelines towards the fridge.

‘And now we’re talking!’ Dave comes back bouncing almost unnoticeably and holding two beers.

‘Cheers Junior’ he clanks his bottle against David’s, the faraway look finally leaving the redhead’s eyes for good today.

**Author's Note:**

> Not much happening here, but I just want to get into writing again so I'll try to post small minifics as often as I can. Not much of a thought process involved there, I just want to sit down and write whatever will come to my mind, as I tend to overthink everything,,, and that will be my modus operndi for this, well, challenge (and, hopefully, I'll stick to it longer than for two minifics). Though this time I cheated a bit, having unfinished draft of another Christmas story laying around. I combined them together and ta-dam, here is my first minific


End file.
